Summer School: Does ecology have an ideology?

On July 7, the seminar “From Green Deal to Clean Deal: does ecology have an ideology?” was held in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, within the framework of the Summer Courses of the Complutense University of Madrid.

An initiative organized by our director, Valentina Martínez Ferro, by José María Coello de Portugal, Vice-Rector for Planning, Coordination, and Institutional Relations at UCM, and the Legados team, bringing together experts from the institutional, academic, and social spheres around the main challenges of the ecological transition.

In the morning, the course featured three institutional presentations:

Elena Pita, Director of the Spanish Climate Change Office, emphasized the need for shared responsibility and political consensus to accelerate climate action.

Nemesio Fernández-Cuesta, former Secretary of State for Energy, warned of the risks of legislating without a solid technological and economic foundation.

Cristina Lobillo, Director for Energy Policy at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Energy, spoke from Brussels to highlight the strategic role of energy autonomy in the European agenda.

In the afternoon, two panel discussions were held:

In the first one, focused on ecological challenges, participants included:

Sofía Tirado Sarti and Elena López Gunn, both from Real Instituto Elcano, who highlighted water management as a fundamental pillar of climate adaptation.

Emilio Peiró Gangoso, Director of Vineaterram, addressed the links between agriculture, sustainability, and territory.

In the second closing panel, participants included Javier Dorado Soto (Director of Legados), Tirso Virgós Varela (Co-director of Legados), and Jorge Alarcón Martín (Program Manager at OIKOS). Together, they led a participatory activity with the audience to make visible that ecological concern is cross-cutting. Based on this exercise, they shared reflections on how to build climate action connected with citizens and capable of transcending ideological divides.

Here are the recordings of the different sections